SouthViews No. 231, 29 November 2021
Waive IP Rights & Save Lives
By Srividhya Ragavan
In October of 2020, when India and South Africa proposed a waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS agreement, it was meant to increase local manufacturing capacity in these countries. The waiver was proposed as a tool to kick-start prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19. While there is an imminent need to meet a growing supply-demand gap for all medical products, COVID-19 related products are urgently required in poorer nations to contain the pandemic. The waiver has an additional role to play in the larger trade schema. In enabling vaccination of populations across the globe, the waiver would be critical to normalize global trade. The paper below captures the benefits of the waiver and compares it with the existing flexibilities under the trade regime, being compulsory licensing.
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This article was tagged: Access to Health, Access to Medicines, Access to Vaccines, Compulsory Licenses, COVID-19, Flexibilities, Global Trade, Innovation, Intellectual Property, Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), Pandemic, Public Health, Right to Health, Trade, TRIPS, TRIPS Waiver, Vaccines, World Trade Organization (WTO)
